I could be mistaken on this, but it kinda looks like one of these recordings is out of phase. Anyone else looked that closely?
Which one?
Not sure which one, it kinda looks like #2. It's one thing to notice that one of them might be inverted, but more tricky to identify which one it is. The phase would not account for the harshness in the highs I heard with #2.
So in terms of what I heard and voted... I found the highs on #2 somewhat harsh and grating. When comparing sources, I tend to focus on the negatives that bother me, and that really jumped out. The bass was different, but that didn't matter given the harshness I perceived.
In a comp, people tend to prefer the louder source. So it is odd that so many of us actually prefered #1, when it was the more quiet source. Btw, as I dug deeper I found some of the differences in peak levels were actually due to one recordist being closer to a clapper.
Beyond my concerns about phase and levels, the waveforms here were surprisingly very different. Take a close look. I was using audacity, which I really don't like. It'd be interesting to compare them in wavelab (which I'm more comfortable in), but I think I'd see the same differences.
And again, though I did reluctantly vote, it seems there were some issues with this comp that preclude me from judging the gear. I did expect the tinybox/cmr to do better than this. I had no idea which source was which. I'm really surprised by what I heard, and wonder what is up. I know John is quite rigorous in his design engineering, but I don't recall reading many posts about listening tests. Those weren't the mk4's that were in the toilet?
So, I don't know.. The levels were different, the phase may be out on one, the waves look a little funky. More investigation is needed. tinybox issue? cmr issue?
Also, as an aside, I still feel the m10 needs more serious testing. Someone with a great and well known preamp like the v3 should do a test where the v3 gain is varied along with the m10 gain. We really need to know if the m10 sounds funky at certain gain settings. Though I would not expect 4 vs. 5 to sound all that different. Also, we need to know how hot the m10 should be run, and what sounds best (or if there is even any difference). Those types of tests can be done at home. Boring stuff, but important.
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Topic: Nbox/CMR Comp (Read 23170 times)